Jericho

by Charles Bowden, Charles D'Ambrosio (Foreword)

When Charles Bowden died in 2014, he left behind an archive of unpublished manuscripts. Jericho marks the fifth installment in his venerable “Unnatural History of America” sextet. In it he invokes the cycles of destruction and rebirth that have defined the ancient biblical city over millennia. From the ruins of Jericho’s walls Bowden reflects on the continuum of war and violence—the many conquests of the Americas; the US-Mexican War; the Vietnam War; and the ongoing militarization of our southern border—to argue against the false promise of security that is offered when men “build that wall.” Walls—both real and imagined—will always come tumbling down.

Along the way, Bowden tells stories of loss and violence, like that of David Hartley, who mysteriously vanishes on Falcon Lake; of murdered drug runners and their cartel bosses; and of a haunted sicario, or hitman, who is running from his past and compulsively confesses his sins as he searches for an absolution that will never come. Set against these scenes of trauma and violence are Bowden’s gorgeous meditations on dancing cranes, soaring eagles, winding paths that traverse mountains, lakes, and deserts. And threaded throughout are the heroic narratives of men like Martin Luther King Jr., who defied the boundaries that surrounded him and was able to reshape the arc of history. Jericho is a remarkable affirmation of our shared humanity and a timely rejection of violence and nationalism by one of our most prophetic writers working at the height of his powers.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2020

About the author

Charles Bowden was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

His journalism appeared regularly in Harper’s GQ, and other national publications. He was the author of several books of nonfiction, including Down by the River.

In more than a dozen groundbreaking books and many articles, Charles Bowden blazed a trail of fire from the deserts of the Southwest to the centers of power where abstract ideas of human nature hold sway — and to the roiling places that give such ideas the lie. He claimed as his turf "our soul history, the germinal material, vast and brooding, that is always left out of more orthodox (all of them) books about America" (Jim Harrison, on Blood Orchid ).

Reviews

[Bryce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure in what order Bowden wrote these posthumously published books, but this one feels very final. There is the Bowden bitterness and beauty thing going on, but it also feels as if he's trying to make sense of the bad bad world and the course of his life and how to make sense of everything he's learned.
Bowden weaves a few disparate threads together to paint his picture of the US-Mexico border and what he sees as its very bleak future: the story of a man killed on a lake straddling the border, and whether he was actually killed by Mexicans or whether his wife lied about the whole thing; moments from his experiences interviewing the sicario that became a movie; and observations and the history of the sandhill crane and the signs they give us.
Bowden starts his story explaining that he's always connected things that don't seem to belong together, and that's what the book is. Seemingly unrelated fragments form the dark and violent image of a world that few people are willing to acknowledge. In Bowdens view a refusal to deal with these hard truths allow those truths to be wielded against an ignorant but vaguely terrified population in the service of awful political agendas.
Does not suffer for being eight years out of date.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting, but it was good nonetheless.